Rosberg caught up in Panama files

The Formula One championship leader has been caught up in the Panamanian shell-company scandal.

A day after winning his second Grand Prix from two starts this season, Mercedes-Benz racer Nico Rosberg has found himself on the front pages of the German media for all the wrong reasons.

The so-called Panama Papers contain more than 1000 German business and celebrity names, including the 30-year-old Rosberg.

The papers, anonymously released after being taken from Panama legal firm Mossack Fonseca, listed a shell company that houses Rosberg’s services as a racing driver to Mercedes-Benz.

Rosberg and his management team have refused to comment. For its part, Mercedes-Benz parent company Daimler has refused to comment, referring to the confidentiality of its business contracts, insisting the shell company did not belong to Daimler or Mercedes-Benz GP.

German broadcaster ARD insisted Mercedes-Benz GP made Rosberg’s F1 contract with a company called Ambitious Group Limited, which is headquartered in the British Virgin Islands, the world’s most popular tax haven. That company, though, belongs to two other companies based in Jersey, in the British Channel Islands.

He is not the only F1 personality to be implicated, though, with former long-time Ferrari President, now Alitalia boss Luca di Montezemolo and ex-Toyota F1 driver Jarno Trulli also implicated by Italian current affairs magazine, L’Espresso.

The situation seems outwardly odd, given that 16-time Grand Prix winner Rosberg lives in the openly tax-free haven of Monaco.

Rosberg, whose father won the 1982 F1 World Championship for Williams, made his F1 debut with the same team in 2006 alongside Mark Weber before joining Mercedes in 2010.

Rosberg, who was born in Germany and holds both German and his father’s Finnish citizenships, has been runner-up in the past two World Championships and has won the last five F1 grands Prix.